PM Kim Beazley in 1998?

deanna

Banned
Kim Beazley and the ALP pulled off over 50 percent of the two party preferred vote in 1998, just one term after Paul Keating had been beaten to a pulp by baseball bats.

But... because the electoral swing was "wasted" in the ALP's most "safest" seats, the ALP didn't win.

POD: the swing is in the Lib-Nats marginals, and Beazley becomes PM.

The republic referendum is on the horizon, but other effects of a Labor federal government?
 
Kimmy is a Defence Academic, Timor and the war on terror would likely give him a secret wet dream of being a war PM.
 
Policy-wise I wonder what this means for the notion of a GST. Beazley wasn’t planning on introducing it in 1998 and the Libs would probably think “we can’t win an election on the GST from Opposition, we can’t do it from government either, do we still want to touch this even with a 10 foot pole?”.

Laurie Brereton as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Probably a harder line on East Timor and on Indonesia in general.

Peter Costello as Liberal Leader. Probably won’t walk away because he thinks it’s too late for the party to turn to him as in OTL.

I agree that Beazley will enjoy being a war time PM. I wonder how he will deal with Labor’s left-wing on issues like Tampa from within government. I wonder as well how long his government would last. Would he be challenged from within or lose an election?

Will be interesting to see as Latham will do. He’s in the Shadow Ministry as Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Good chance of coming into the outer ministry and sooner or later into the cabinet. (Beazley shadow ministry circa 1996 can be found at: https://australianpolitics.com/1996/03/19/beazley-alp-shadow-ministry.html

Rudd, Gillard, Swan, Albanese as Parliamentary Secretaries at the very least as junior ministers if Beazley lasts 2 terms.
 
A swing that preaches to the choir is radically different from a swing in Eden-Monaro. Beazley is simply less competent of an operator and media figure than Howard. In part this means labor will be pushing uphill. It is labor so it is pushing uphill anyway. Capital has used the ALP to achieve the breaking of the legs of the labour movement via the accord and systemic permanent un and under employment. Why would Capital in general need the ALP?

So yeah, that’s a dead girl or live boy territory.
 
Policy-wise I wonder what this means for the notion of a GST. Beazley wasn’t planning on introducing it in 1998 and the Libs would probably think “we can’t win an election on the GST from Opposition, we can’t do it from government either, do we still want to touch this even with a 10 foot pole?”.

Laurie Brereton as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Probably a harder line on East Timor and on Indonesia in general.

Peter Costello as Liberal Leader. Probably won’t walk away because he thinks it’s too late for the party to turn to him as in OTL.

I agree that Beazley will enjoy being a war time PM. I wonder how he will deal with Labor’s left-wing on issues like Tampa from within government. I wonder as well how long his government would last. Would he be challenged from within or lose an election?

Will be interesting to see as Latham will do. He’s in the Shadow Ministry as Shadow Assistant Treasurer. Good chance of coming into the outer ministry and sooner or later into the cabinet. (Beazley shadow ministry circa 1996 can be found at: https://australianpolitics.com/1996/03/19/beazley-alp-shadow-ministry.html

Rudd, Gillard, Swan, Albanese as Parliamentary Secretaries at the very least as junior ministers if Beazley lasts 2 terms.

Was Kim Beazley paticulary right wing in the Labor Party? What was the conflict between him and the Left like during that time?
 
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